Unit 2 - Languages with Special Roles: National and Official Languages

Symbolic Nature

Countries focused on developing, maintaining, and protecting a new/existing national identity may favor the use of internal sources for new words. ex. China prefers internal sourcing ex. Japan borrows words from English

Corpus Planning - Internal Sourcing

Create 'new' words by re-using old words or sub-parts of words already in a language, in three ways: (1) give a new meaning to an old word no longer used Hausa: jakaadaa meant 'important palace messenger' - new meaning: 'ambassador' (2) promote the use of words from regional dialects (3) make new combinations of existing words with new meanings - 'compounds' English: green house, wet suit, hard drive

Corpus Planning

Further developing the languages selected in step ! Develop the vocabulary for us in all areas of life Create dictionaries Grammar rules Describe how language should be written Graphization: Selection of a particular script

Status Planning

Giving special roles to certain languages/varieties, e.g. selecting new NLs and OLs

NL vs. OL

NLs: symbolic, representative, binding OLs: utilitarian, non-symbolic National-official language - When a single language serves both NL and OL functions, it is called a Examples: Japanese, Polish, French (in France),..

Singapore

OL - Malay, Mandarin, Tamil, English NL - Malay

Paraguay

OL - Spanish NL - Guarani

Tanzania

OL - Swahili, English NL - Swahili

Linguistic Protectionism

Policy that new words should only be created from internal resources. Doesn't change old words, like purification system Want to protect their language. Ex. French Academy blocked new English word being used in place of French words with fines.

Sri Lanka

Population at independence (1948): 75% Sinhala speakers, 25% Tamil speakers 1956 first post-independence elections. Freedom Party's leader pledge: We will make Sinhala the unique OL of Sri Lanka immediately! The Freedom Party wins election, makes Sinhala the unique OL. Tamil books/films from India are banned. Riots occur, hundreds die. Civil war, terrorism. Still not peacefully resolved.

Multiple National Languages

Pros: avoids inter-ethnic/regional discontent/conflict due favoring a single NL Cons: weakens the potential unifying force of having a single NL

Language purification

Purging of words of foreign origin to make the national language 'pure' again. Borrowed words/loanwords are replaced with new native/internally-sourced words. Ex. N. Korea, 1960s, thousands of words changed → N. Korean sounds almost unintelligible to S. Koreans in 1970s in first North/South meetings after the war.

Multiple Official Languages

Some states have decided to establish and support more than one OL Pros: all segments of a population have equal linguistic advantages Cons: very expensive as a policy - all official materials have to be produced in multiple languages.

Only Official Language

The OL is often not an indigenous language, but a major world language (English, French..) Advantages: ethnically neutral the OL is already standardized, 'ready-to-go'. Disadvantages: (a) no stimulation of national unity via a NL, (b) the OL may have negative colonial associations (c) learning a non-indigenous language may be hard.

Function of National Language

Unifying - unify the nation + offer advantages to speakers that other languages don't. Separatist - should distinguish its speakers from those of other nations. Prestige - should be seen as a 'real language' with high status. Frame-of-reference - should provide a model of correctness = be well-standardized.

National Language

are symbolic and intended to represent the nation and its projected national identity. Unify populations with a common national spirit

Borrowing

from other languages is more common in countries which are more open to accepting outside cultural influences and inspiration, and may already have a strong, confident national identity.

Pakistan/Bangladesh

- 1947 the new state of Pakistan was formed West Pakistan: 25 million, very mixed population, many languages, politically more powerful - East Pakistan (now Bangladesh): 44 million, mostly speakers of Bengali - West Pakistan declares that Urdu will be the NL. - People in East Pakistan wanted Bengali as NL. Proposal rejected. - New E. Pakistan proposal: Bengali as a third OL of the country, together with Urdu and English. Rejected. Causes agitation → a new language movement → an independence movement → civil war 1971 East Pakistan becomes independent Bangladesh

Official Language

1) Specified for a specific area of life (teaching in schools, use w/ gov) 2) Also approved for a specific geographic area. Ex. A country, region, state, province

Indonesia

1949 independence A new OL for Indonesia? Not Dutch - Not Javanese 'Malay', developed as 'Indonesian'. 4 advantages: (1) ethnically-neutral, mostly used as an L2 lingua franca (2) Already used in some schools and popular novels. (3) An indigenous language of Indonesia (4) Used by the independence movement = prestige Standardized + vocabulary developed Now widely used in: (a) formal domains of communication (b) inter-group communication Other languages not repressed, used locally. Stable bilingualism through much of Indonesia.

Regional Multilingualism

A good example of this is India, where the government reorganized the borders of the country into 'linguistic states' between 1956 and 1966, in which twelve major regional languages became official. The establishment of multiple regional official languages consequently reduced the likelihood that linguistic issues might cause discontent and lead to civil unrest among the ethnically mixed population of India. If a state is well-organized and there is equitable treatment of its

Ainu People Japan

An ethnic group living in Hokkaido and other islands north of Japan. The differences between the Ainu and the Japanese marked the northern border of Japan in a useful way. The Ainu were forbidden to learn and speak Japanese or wear Japanese clothing. Active dissimilation. 18thC changes: The Ainu further north of Hokkaido start to adopt Russian clothing, names, and religion. Japan reacts, and decides to make Ainu living in Hokkaido into Japanese people. The Ainu are now encouraged to speak Japanese, wear Japanese clothing, follow Japanese customs. Active assimilation. Phase 3 Late 18thC, the Russian 'threat' recedes: → Japan stops its assimilation policy. The Ainu are ordered to stop wearing Japanese clothing, speaking Japanese New dissimilation policy. Phase 4. 19-20thC. Japanese nationalism - emphasis on uniform national culture, ethnicity, language. Pressure on the Ainu to give up heritage language and speak Japanese. Renewed assimilation. Effects: Ainu has almost totally disappeared, very little chance of revival. A dying language (Unit 3).

Ajerbaijan

Azerbaijani - Azeri was written with Arabic script. 1920s - the Soviet government imposes Roman alphabet, to weaken links with Muslim groups in other countries. 1928 - Turkey switches from Arabic script to Roman alphabet to write Turkish 1930s - all languages spoken in Soviet Union ordered to switch to use of Cyrillic alphabet.

Corpus Planning - External Sourcing

orrow a word and its meaning from another language. Chinese: Gongfu becomes English Kung Fu 2/3 of words in English have been borrowed from other languages(Latin and French)